1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiographic image capturing device that captures a radiographic image of a breast of a subject and a compression paddle that is used in a medical radiographic image capturing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are radiographic image capturing devices (mammography) for breasts that capture a radiographic image of a breast of a subject for the purpose of early detection of breast cancer and so forth. In this type of radiographic image capturing device, a breast that has been placed on an imaging surface of an imaging table is compressed by a compression paddle, and a radiographic image of the breast is captured in this compressed state.
In breast imaging, mirror reading—in which sets of radiographic image information of both the right and the left breasts of the same subject are acquired and compared—is performed. In this case, it is desirable for the acquired images to be bilaterally symmetrical to improve the precision of reading and diagnosis. Further, in the case of comparing a past image of the same breast of the same subject with an image to be captured this time, it is necessary for the positioning of the past image and the positioning of the image to be captured now to be the same. In order to realize such positioning, skilled advanced technology is required.
In order to grasp the positioning of the breast easily and with high precision, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-285345, for example, discloses a mammography device that is capable of measuring the compression pressure distribution.
Meanwhile, a compression paddle may be detached from and attached to a radiographic image capturing device body. However, in the technology described in JP-A No. 2009-285345, pressure sensors are disposed integrally with the compression paddle, so pressure sensors must be provided for each compression paddle, which becomes wasteful and expensive. Further, a configuration in which pressure sensors are disposed integrally with the compression paddle is inconvenient in the case of detaching and cleaning the compression paddle.